Friday, July 15, 2011

Picture, not pitcher

I'm writing my Personal and Professional Philosophy, which goes under the heading of "Assignments That I Think Are Useless." Maybe they are useful for people who aren't Mormon or religious at all. But, I've been thinking about my Personal and Professional Philosophy in one form or another my entire life. Which makes this thing pretty easy to knock out... except when I outsmart myself.

Here's one of the prompts: "I believe that my personal and professional philosophies are congruent (not congruent) because..."

Did you mentally translate that 'not' to 'as opposed to' and then spend 2 minutes trying to figure out the difference between 'congruent' and 'congruent'? After concluding that they were spelled the same, did you spend a few seconds trying to think of homonyms for congruent? Did you look it up in the dictionary to see if there were words around it that were spelled almost the same but with wildly different meanings to make sure that you wrote about the congruence the professor was looking for? Like maybe, she misspelled the homonym and accidentally just wrote the same word twice. Then, did you read the sentence 4 or 5 more times before you figured out that you needed to put the emphasis on the 'not' instead of the 'congruent' for it to make sense?

I believe that my personal and professional philosophies are congruent (not CONGRUENT)...

I believe that my personal and professional philosophies are congruent (NOT congruent)...

Us and Things

We are the Balls: raised in California, raising kids in Arizona. Amanda is sacrificing every last shred of her sanity to the care and feeding of the little ones while Tyler earns bread and butter by designing spaceships. Welcome to our craziness.

A taste of the Ball life

Amanda: What do you want for lunch: ham sandwich or peanut butter sandwich?Lillian: Ham. No, peanut butter. No... ham... No, peanut butter.Amanda: Ok, I'm going to make you a peanut butter sandwich. (makes sandwich)Lillian: NO! I WANTED HAM!!!!Amanda: You said peanut butter, and I told you I was going to make you peanut butter.Lillian: No... I think you just spaced out Mom.

Tyler on dodo birds: I mean, any species that can be wiped out by rats probably didn't deserve to live. Nature should have selected them a long time ago to go extinct... it's like it forgot and got there late.

Lillian: I like carrots mom. They're like... juice you eat.

Tyler was reading Lillian a picture book in which a little boy finds an airplane in his closet and takes it into space where he runs out of gas and lands on the moon. On the moon, he meets a little Martian boy, wearing a space suit, who's spaceship had crashed.Tyler: How come the Martian needs a space suit and the little boy doesn't? This book is so inaccurate.

Lillian threw a piece of food during dinner.Tyler: Lillian don't throw food.Lillian: But, it was just a little bit of food.

Amanda looks over and sees Lillian desperately trying to shove the Camelbak valve into Nora's mouth.Amanda: Stop that! Don't put that into her mouth!Lillian: Mom, I'm just playing doctor.Amanda: Well, don't put it into her mouth.Lillian (accompanied with change in tactic): Just her ears.

Lillian (pointing): This is my neck. This is Daddy's neck. This is Mom's neck. Nora doesn't have a neck.

Amanda: Listen to this, "The men and women of the Yana tribe in California speak different dialects." (TIME Magazine).Tyler: The men and women speak different dialects in our house: sense and nonsense.

I ran upstairs briefly and left Nora in her chair with a curious Lillian looking on. Nora started fussing and crying a little and I heard Lillian say, "Nora! Stop Crying! Use your words!"

We practiced and practiced saying "Daddy, I missed you" all the way to the bus stop, a full five minute drive. Upon arrival, I prep Lillian one last time. I roll down the window, Tyler sticks his head in, and I prompt Lillian, "do you have something to say to daddy?"Lillian looks up at him with her eyes full and sincere, "Juicebox."

Amanda: This dictionary says Wednesday can be pronounced wendz-dee or wendz-day.Tyler: Well... that dictionary was written by an old person.